kronovan

I'd like to see Alephtar Game's BRP settings be made available again - especially The Celestial Empire and Dragon Lines. Their settings were mentioned already and I bought a number of the PDFs when they were still available, but currently they aren't even available on drivethrurpg. I'd also really like to see a republishing of Ringworld for BRP. I have a lend of a buddie's Ringworld set, but it seems very cryptic and the layout very dated - I feel overwhelmed whenever I leaf through it. I Would love to see an update of it with better presentation and incorporating anything that's been changed or added to BRP. I just bought the BRP UGE hardcover (gave up on finding a print copy of the BGB in my country years ago) and I'd like to buy some shiny new editions of those settings and get them to the table. Probably just wishful thinking, but one can only hope.

Many thanks for the link Lawrence - always good to go to the source. Unfortunately jackvance.com only does paypal and I don't do paypal. To my surprise an epub has now shown up at chapters.ca, so I'm going to go with that.

Very good interview. Lots of good info covered there and I'm thinking that both of those new settings might be purchases for me. I've only ever sat down to Trail of Cthulhu a few times at CONs though, so my memory is a bit fuzzy on GUMSHOE and how much I enjoyed it. In regard to Lyonesse, my question is where the heck do you get a epub of the 1st novel? I searched for it at Chapters, amazon.ca and the Google play store a few months ago and could only locate epubs for The Green Pearl and Madouc from that trilogy. Even printed copies for Lyonesse seem to be only available as preowns. I ejoyed Vance's Tales from the Dying Earth and Last Castle and I'd really like to read the 1st Lyonesse novel before I run some adventures set in it.

My apologies for taking some time to get back to this thread, but many thanks for all the feedback. I decided I needed to re-read the Mythras character related and gear & economic chapters and with my print copy about to arrive any day, thought I'd wait until I had it in hand. I also do own the Legend RPG, but do prefer Mythras to it. That said, I'm going to purchase Land of Ice & Stones in the Thanksgiving sale, as it sounds like it'll have content that's applicable to my homebrew.

Many thanks for the reply Raleel. Yep, my bad; should have used the word Styles instead of kits. My thought was to have Cultural Styles that included both combat weapons and mundane tools, and then flag those items that are weapons. I did a bit of the brain fart with my adze though, as I was thinking it's the same as a stone axe, but in fact it's a horizontal mounted stone celt/blade instead of a vertical one. I did have bolas, but I don't know how I missed the sling as it seems like a natural. A dart being used without an atlatl by a few of the cultures is a possibility too. I do own Mythic Britain, so I'll give that section a read again. With having up to 12 weapons now, there probably is enough to make complete Combat Styles. I've gone back and forth on the Lakeside and Riverside cultures, with the thought of consolidating them into a single Shoreline or Waterside culture; can't decide which makes also having a Coastal culture less confusing? The other cultures are reasonably distinct from one another in both careers and combat styles. Even though the Highland and Plateau descriptors may sound similar, the geography of the settings actually leads to them being a very different type of subsistence. I have already limited career lists by culture, but admittedly the Riverside and Lakeside lists are too similar. I also don't have as many careers as the default Mythras primitive culture, with my setting being too prehistoric for Scholar and a Scout by my thinking is just a Hunter for similar reasons. For the careers, I am considering borrowing the Socio-political Medicine Person, Healer Medicine Person, Shaman triad found in some Native American cultures. And in a sense those Medicine Persons really are the Scholar/Sage and Physicians of the culture. I'm also not sure about a Thief, as a setting in the Mesolithic era seems too early to have the social stratification to support it. I have considered creating a Pillager or Raider career, but just aren't sure yet? All great advice. Quality, tough wood can only really be found in the highland mountains where dense-wood evergreens grow. I do plan on factoring trading into the setting in a significant way though, so maybe a PC can trade and then add a better quality club or spear to their style. As I think more about it though, there are some humongous, tusk-bearing megafauna in the setting like Woolly Rhinos, Mastadons and Woolly Mammoths and large marine mammals with big, hard bones and even Narwhal tusks. So most of the cultures likely have access to large and tough, carve-able materials.

I finally ordered my physical copy of the Mythras CRB, so I'm wanting to get a bit more serious with a homebrew I've been brewing. The challenge with my homebrew, is that it's set in a mesolithic (albeit the transition from upper-paleolithic) timeline where threats are much more in the form of megafauna like Short-face Bears, Polar Bears, Scimitar Cats, Woolly Rhinos, Flat-headed Precarys, Smilodons, etc. Combat occurs most commonly around the activity of hunting and defense during gathering/foraging, while human Vs human conflict is rare - albeit not completely unheard of. With humans as hunter-gatherers, what would be weapon kits in a typical Mythras setting mostly are also the tools used for common activities in daily life. The geography and topography in my setting is a bit unique for the historical era. There's 2 seas (northern that's icelocked for most of the year and a warmer, southern ice-free), many large lakes (2 are over 500 long x 250 km wide) dominating the central plane, 5 small (albeit one is 800x200 km) & distinct plateaus, high mountains along the entire east & west with massive icefields at their highest extents, and many large rivers with either lake or melting glacial sources. My thinking is that makes Humans with a lower state of tech, are much more impacted by the environments of the land. So my cultures are a bit more diverse and numerous than standard Mythras ones. These are the cultures I have so far: Nomads Alpine/Highlander Plateau Coastal (sea) Lakeside Riverside Despite there not being near as much variation in hunting weapons, there's still a few. Here's what I have so far: Knife (stone & bone) Stone Adze (hardwood handle fitted with a stone celt) Spears (both stone & bone tipped) Harpoon (both stone & bone tipped) Atlatl (spear thrower) Club Bow & Stone-tipped arrows Bolas Sedge Net Where I struggle is with filling out a weapons kit with the sort of variety that a typical Mythras kit has; just don't have enough diversity of weapons for that. Meanwhile, with cultures being much more environ/site specific, most wouldn't have every weapon in that list. So I'm thinking that my setting's kits would include both weapon and non-damaging tools. That way a kit could still provide a decent number of items. The other daily items in a kit could be things like sheaths, fishing nets, bowls, packs, wood-slitted snow goggles, spirit talismans, etc. Being new to Mythras and having had minimal time GMing it, I'm wondering if such an approach might negatively impact Economics and equipment? I'm also not sure of the damage values for my weapons. My bow is the original, prehistoric deal and certainly not the ingenious composite bow of the Mongols or the sophisticated recurve of the Persians - an arrow hurled from an atlatl might even be more damaging? The same would be true of the celt-fitted adze compared to a battlaxe (heck even a hatchet for that matter) and my spears probably shouldn't do anywhere near the damage of a Longspear. And with quality woods being limited in my setting, my club would no doubt not as damaging as the Mythras club and great club. So while I'm thinking their size would be the same, I'm not at all sure of the damage values? My approach is to begin with something historical and mundane as a foundation and then eventually turn up the dials to arrive at something closer to Historical Fantasy. So later I'll create the setting background for more human conflict and probably intro Animism magic for Shamans. This is the first time I've done a setting like this with any RPG though, so I want to initially try to create something that's more historic and credible - if that makes any sense? If anyone could give me any feedback or suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.

They did and the results were so poor that it pains me to even think about it. I personally feel that the Necroscope setting just begs to have a good RPG translation done for it, but it has to be a better effort than West End Games' treatment. When I saw the thread title Necroscope was the 1st setting that came to mind. I feel it's perfectly doable with a number of different RPGs, provide the right talent and effort is applied to it.

I'm fairly new here too. I saw you mention you were looking for this "... some pulpy WW2 action..." If you're wanting to inject in a bit more WW 2 flavor into you campaign, I'd recommend taking a look at Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu. It adds a lot of nice tools for both investigators and keepers and there's some decent adventures available for it; some even free. They released an Achtung! Cthulhu Investigator's guide and Keeper's guide for 7th edition this year, but you can probably make do with just the IG. The series is multi-system and also available for FATE Core and Savage Worlds, so if you do decide to get any of it make sure you choose the CoC versions. As well, don't bother with the freebie Achtung! Cthulhu Skirmish material, as it's based on a tabletop rule set from Spartan Games (now out of business) and is more for players wanting that type of experience.

I really like the psionics in M-Space, but you're correct in that it doesn't quite fit with powers/magic in my homebrew. Part of my challenge is that my psychepunk setting was originally brewed for the Savage Worlds system. In that RPG powers are purposefully generic and it's up to the GM or player to flavor them with trappings. There's also few utility powers in the system. All of which supports the common criticisms that SW powers are too generic, which is almost always due to the GM or players not taking the time to trap them, or being ignorant of the need to. Apart from cosmetic descriptions, trappings also add some play mechanic boons to powers so players miss out by not having defined them. For my setting I wanted to build in some structure to trappings and avoid the generic. I took trappings way out there by basing all powers on 5 core energies and 8 trappings/disciplines by which those energies are manifested - it's subtext as to why they emanate from 5 energies. Those trappings reflect the characteristics of the core energy they're linked to. When a character manifests a power, their trapping descriptions are always activated in the form trapping+power name. So for example; Varma is one of the the core energies and is what we would think of as thermal energy, while Brenna is that energy manifested as heat. If a player were to manifest that trapping as the SW Blast power, it would be activated as Brenna - Blast. The cosmetic aspect to the trapping could be anything heat related; fire and flames, melting objects, visual heat distortions, etc. There's a utility component to the trapping too, in that a player with even a novice understanding of the Brenna discipline can do some simple things involving heat; i.e. lighting a candle, igniting dry kindling, quicken the drying of a wet t-shirt, etc. I've read through the 5 different magic chapters in Mythras, but I haven't found 1 that exactly matches up. Mysticism is probably the closest, but not all of my trapping-disciplines align with it. While hedge magic is some ways is similar to power disciplines in my setting when at a novice proficiency. I've done enough converting/adapting to be aware that the best approach it to always only adapt flavor, but I'm struggling with even matching up the flavor of my setting - no doubt partly due to magic being so well detailed in Mythras and the 5 forms being distinctly different. The who, when and how many, is also a challenge in making the powers in my setting work with Mythras. While my trapping-disciplines restrict the powers a player initially has access to, players are able to unravel the mysteries of other 8 disciplines through the course of their life as a psychepunk. As well, all PCs are able to acquire 1 or 2 powers (dependent upon their core Spirit attribute) from a single trapping in their most novice form. There's also a further awakening of 2 additional energies and 4 additional trapping-disciplines, that a psychepunk can awaken to at advanced life stages - called ranks in SW. In my setting there's 4 degrees by which a PC may have embraced powers; those in which powers are only stirred (all PCs), those in which they're awakening (PCs with a SW Arcane Background edge), those in which powers have been awakened (PCs with an AB @ Veteran+ rank) and an obscure clique -most citizens only consider them a myth- called the Wakers. Wakers can learn all 7 core energies and 12 trapping-disciplines. Initially players aren't even aware of how find or become a Waker and must discover them through adventuring. Then having found them, must undertake a potentially fatal, weird and maybe even humorous process in one very weird and obscure location. In SW, the ranks make it very easy to gauge where a players at cradle-grave, but are broader than the more restricting levels found in other RPGs - there's only 5. With Mythras though, it isn't so clear and I have a hard time wrapping my brain around how to handle the "when" with magic/powers? Anyhow...didn't mean to ramble on so long and derail this thread - I've been pondering this recently, so it's still fresh in my mind. The SW edition of my setting is very complete and I'd start going through the Pinnacle approval process tomorrow, were I not lacking the art work.

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but since I bought M-Sqace last month I bought this too. I still haven't decided if Mythras is the system to base my psychepunk homebrew upon. I like lot of the potential in the core system, but the magic doesn't seem to mesh that well with my homebrew. As per usual though, reading of more ways to adapt the system always helps.

Concealing the last of the toilet paper from the rest of the party in a post-apocalyptic setting. Sheesh - how is this not an important enough skill to dedicate points to ! 🙈 🙉 🙊

Good to know, the Waterlands adventures is the only Mythic Britain PDF I don't own. I typically write my own adventures and campaign arcs, but I liked the campaign and adventures in the core book enough to begin with those - quality stuff. I'm curious to read, hear or view what Waterlands might add.

No worries Lawrence, I could make out the majority of what you said and could always get the gist of it. I lived for a few years in rural Canada when analog phones with party-lines was the most bleeding-edge communication tech most could afford - ouch! I'm spoiled by living in urban Canada on the west coast now, but at times it boggles my mind how Internet speed can crawl and sputter even here. My recent reading of the Mythras rules and running some Mythic Britain adventures, has gotten me far enough along with the system that there wasn't too much new info in the podcast. I wasn't aware though of the new companion and that you TDM folks were the ones behind the Mongoose Runequest edition. I was hearing good things about that edition on my return in 2010 from a very long absence from P'n'P gaming. Last month one of the couples in our CoC gaming group was boxing up to relocate to Halifax and brought by a complete set of the BRP Ringworld boxset books. They knew Ringworld was one of the bright highlights of my childhood Sci-Fi reading and I'm keen on finding some way of getting this gift to the table with Mythras. So...I'd really like to hear one of you folks at TDM give 30 minutes or so in a podcast on the best practices, or maybe "the tips and traps" for adapting older BRP settings to Mythras. With BRP being around for 40 years there's so many great settings out there, but for someone new to Mythras like me it seems like a daunting task even if it isn't.

Very good podcast - nicely hosted. I did at times have some difficulty making out all of the words of Lawrence Whitaker - I'm guessing it was a device or connectivity issue on the guests end. I admittedly don't give Mythras as much attention as some of my other RPGs being very new to it, but having recently purchased Mythras 3e and Mythic Britain along with its supplements, I'm also not completely in the dark. So I was surprised to hear the release of a Mythras Companion is imminent - very glad to have discovered that with this podcast and I'll certainly be purchasing it. Where do we send any suggestions for future podcasts?

Many thanks for all the replies. I've now purchased The Glorantha Sourcebook PDF and visited the notesfrompravis website. That site does indeed appear to be very comprehensive and I'll give it a thorough browsing before considering any more purchases.

Of for sure and I realize that, but for an old and decrepit gamer like me with waning memory, keeping PDF purchases under one umbrella helps. Yikes, @ $66.28 CDN you're not kidding! That seems a bit steep considering I just bought the Mythic Britain, Mythic Britain Companion and Mythic Britain Logres PDFs for less than half that. That's more $ than I want to spend for an initial investment, so I'll probably start with the Sourcebook and if it hooks me in and leaves me wanting more, consider getting the rest too.

I do own the Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha PDF and I'm wondering if it might provide some of that missing setting content you mention? Just prior to purchasing that PDF though, I'd bought Mythras and after a quick read of it I preferred its organization and presentation and concluded it would be a better fit more my gaming group and I. Admittedly though, I'm more of a universalist for RPGs and tend towards rule books that aren't tied to specific settings. It's also my approach when adapting a setting to an RPG, to adapt flavor as opposed to actually converting. If there's chapters in RQG I should give a read through though, I'd appreciate hearing about them. I'm very comfortable with that approach and it's in fact the way a campaign I'm currently playing in and another homebrewed setting I'm running, are being played and run. My searches for the Guide to Glorantha book on drivethrurpg didn't turn up any results - I'm wondering if Chaosium has stopped publishing it, or never bothered to publish it as a PDF? The only Glorantha books related to cults I can find on drivethrurpg are these 3: Cults of Terror; Gloranthan Classics Volume III - Cult Compendium; Cults of Prax. Are those the Glorantha 2nd Age publications you're referring to, or are they something else? The Cults of Terror actually looks to be a book created for the most recent RQG rule set?

Thanks for that link 7Tigers. From that review, it reads like the kind of sourcebook I enjoy and appreciate. It does indeed sound adaptable to other RPGs.

I've only ever sat down to tables running adventures from the world of Glorantha a few times, but the setting did intrigue and stick with me. On those few play occasions, after the sessions I queried the hosting GMs about setting details. The responses left me with the impression that it'd be cool to run a campaign or even a short series of adventures in the setting. Then the other day I noticed in the Runequest sale on drivethrurpg that The Glorantha Sourcebook is on sale at 50% off - quite a discount. The book reads like it's system agnostic based on these comments from the introduction in the preview: That certainly seems to describe it as a book that could work with other RPGs; especially one based on d100 like Mythras. I then saw this recent thread in this forum and reading it leads me to believe there's more work than I would have first imagined. I've done my share of adapting settings to other RPGs, but I'm new to Mythras. From what I read in that other thread, it seems like setting specific Cultures and the rune magic are the key differences. So I'm wondering how applicable, or adaptable, that sourcebook could be for Mythras?

Cool discussion and one I feel compelled to join. I'm new to Mythras, but are interested in how it could be used to craft a cyberpunk setting or run some cyberpunk adventures. As much as I hate to admit it, I started reading SciFi as a kid before the word cyberpunk was invented. I started on the genre when some of the "new wave" of SciFi authors were still pumping out pages. I read stories and novels by Dick, Ballard, Ellison and Farmer (authors the early Cyberpunk writers claimed to be influences) in the 70's, while they were still fresh. Back then the only thing "cyber" written about was cybernetics; the study of systems of control. I remember having the Whole Earth Catalog (the Hippies' directory for everything you could spend $ on) at home and Cybernetics always got a page. I was too young to grok what it fully meant, but I was fascinated by the pictures and words. Later in High School I made searches and inquiries about cybernetics, but the only thing I could find were older 40s & 50's references on the original subject; none of the cool, heady stuff in Whole Earth. Eventually I got caught up when periodicals arrived with articles about the newer, 2nd Form of Cybernetics. In its new take on the subject, it was as important to study those who studied the systems of control, as the systems themselves. I recall the 2nd Form becoming a buzz topic in the late 70's and my mom once getting pretty pumped up about attending a lecture by one of the theories main proponents. Later on in college when I read more on it, I was quite meh - seemed like just another "new age" academic trend. So...where am I going with this? If you read Bruce Bethke's description of how he arrived at the term Cyberpunk in 1980, he describes how he had a list of cool sounding terms like cyber and techno and played around with making combos with terms for socially misdirected youth. Out of those, cyberpunk stuck. William Gibson mentions that when conceiving Cyberspace, it emerged out of his thoughts as a cool buzzword, but it didn't really have any true semantic meaning. I'd speculate that the term "cyber" was likely bouncing around in both of those authors grey cells, due to the popular buzz around the time for 2nd Form Cybernetics. For me the idea of systems of control has stuck and forms part of the foundation of how I view this subgenre. So I paint my definition of cyberpunk with a broader stroke; it's all about punking systems of control in a near-future setting. Systems of control can be as varied as digital terminals that control massive info networks, to cybernetic implants that augment and control muscles and bone, to traditional man-machine interfaces that control legacy systems in the oldest recesses of cities. While the punks are as varied as the systems themselves. They can be the usual suspects like hackers with attitude or back alley implant pushers, but they can also be corporate execs out for personal gain, punking systems via illegal skunk works run from forgotten wings of their corporate towers. The punk aspect does of course still needs to include some element of bad attitude or contempt for moral standards. There's a lot of leeway though in how that's expressed in characters. A near-future time frame, is also what separates the cyberpunk flavor of punking systems of control from Steampunk and the even chronologically closer Dieselpunk subgenre. I side with those posters who don't agree with all of the conclusions of the Guardian article linked in the OP. The portrayal of Cyberpunk through various media has indeed often been made with specific, repeated styles. IMO though, that's more about the particular window dressing that a producer or artist uses to convey stories told within the subgenre and less about the core kernel of what's Cyberpunk is. I don't feel the subgenre has been made irrelevant by the transition to information economies, intro of tech that surpasses that conceived by the formative writers, or social media becoming the prime target of info exploitation. For sure some systems of control become obsolete to be replaced by others, but that doesn't mean there can't be a new cast of characters or archetypes to exploit what's shiny and new. To me Cyberpunk is a dynamic, moving concept with lots of opportunity to tell new kinds of stories in a slightly further along near-future. Anyhow...sorry for the long ramble. I had an opportunity a few years ago to do some writing for a Cyberpunk setting, so the topic is something I return to and ponder every once in a while.

Hello, I'm new here and new to Mythras. I don't own M-Space yet, but since I often run Science Fiction adventures I'm seriously considering it. I've run SciFi adventures with Travelers, True20 and the MechWarrior RPGs. That said, I've run more SciFi with Savage Worlds than any other RPG. Which leads me to disagree with these 2 bullets listed by the OP as CONs for Savage Worlds: Savage Worlds has been a toolkit RPG from its inception with adjustable knobs and sliders, enabling a GM or setting creator to tweak it the way they want. IMO the "pulpy", "action" and "combat focused" labels are often applied to it, because action and combat do indeed play out very fluidly in it (it's marketing blurb is after all "fast, furious & fun"), and its acing dice can compliment pulp archetypes and settings well. IMO though, SW is by know means restricted to that sort of or genre or style of play. Especially if the GM encourages players to roleplay their PC's hindrances and occasionally incorporate those into plot hooks. Beginning with Savage Worlds Deluxe (previous edition released in 2011), narrative play mechanics like Social Conflicts, Interludes and Dramatic Tasks in social scenes, have made it more conducive to a narrative style of play. While Networking has been added as a new social play mechanic in the most recent version (Adventure Edition) of the rules. If potential risk to players is what the OP meant by serious tone, that can be easily set by implementing optional rules like, blood & guts, gritty damage and critical failures; all detailed in the CRB. Anyhow...it's not my aim to convince the OP to choose SW over Mythras + M-Space, just to clarify what I consider some common misconceptions about SW. Although I'm new to Mythras, I can well envision where it'd play well for SciFi with the right cultures, professions, combat styles and weapon details. Hence my interest in also acquiring M-Space and trying it out with my players by running some adventures.

Well that brings up a good point; what's the size and damage for a hard, leather-covered bible. I expect my priest will always have his along with him at all times and hold it when faced with anything evil. I'd expect he'd swing it when in dire need - possibly even toss it. Ah, I should have made that clear. My discussion was about the North American definition of a torch; i.e. burning/flammable torch made of wood.

That makes sense, I'll make that suggestion to the Keeper for a final ruling. I did notice in the CoC rules, unlike the BRP rules, that the base percentile for the torch skill starts at 10%, but is variable depending upon how flammable the cloth is. I'm assuming that's referring to how flammable the cloth the torch is wrapped in is? Which brings up yet another question, where do you find the listing of how flammable the different materials are?

lol. Well I can tell you this; I just went camping with my 7 year old nephew and he could throw a torch sized stick taken from the camp fire into the lake further than the distance given in BRP for a reasonably strong adult. And it never went out until it hit the lake, despite it being near the cooler shoreline.

Ah, I missed the light club earlier when I looked at primitive weapon table, but that makes sense.